Infosys turns down Narayana Murthy's plea to make probe report public

Murthy, sources said, wrote a letter to the board about three weeks ago asking for a full public disclosure of the report by US law firm Gibson Dunn and global risk consultancy and investigations firm Control Risks.Shilpa Phadnis | TNN | August 04, 2017, 10:45 IST

Infosys has turned down a demand by company co-founder N R Narayana Murthy that the report on its investigation into whistleblower complaints be made public.

Murthy, sources said, wrote a letter to the board about three weeks ago asking for a full public disclosure of the report by US law firm Gibson Dunn and global risk consultancy and investigations firm Control Risks.

The two firms were mandated to look into allegations of improprieties in connection with Infosys' acquisitions of Panaya and Skava Systems in 2015 and that the mergers and acquisitions team acted without securing proper approvals.

They were also asked to look into charges that CEO Vishal Sikka requested that improper deals be made with customers, and that he received inappropriate compensation and incurred excessive expenses relating to travel, security and his Palo Alto office.

Infosys had on June 23 disclosed a summary by Gibson Dunn of the investigation they conducted. The law firm said unambiguously that it, and Control Risks, had not found any evidence to support any of the allegations.

Gibson Dunn also reviewed two previous investigations completed by Indian law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangal das last year, related to the propriety of a severance pay out made to former CFO Rajeev Bansal. It found that the two previous investigations were thorough, and that their findings and conclusions were reasonable and credible based on the evidence.

It is not clear what Murthy expects from the full report. TOI sent a mail asking Murthy about the purpose of his request to the board, but there was no response till the time of going to print. Asked about Murthy's letter, Infosys said it "does not plan to make the report public."

Some analysts were surprised that the issues between the co-founders and the board have come to the fore again. “Murthy's spat with Infosys' board is like a sequence from the movie Groundhog Day (American comedy film). Every time the issues appear to have been settled they start afresh,“ Tom Reuner, SVP of intelligent automation and IT services at IT consulting firm HfS Research, said.

He said Infosys urgently needs a phase of stability as the market undergoes the seismic shift toward notions of digital and automation.